State Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin won a second term in office with a huge 13% swing at the March 25 NSW State Election. At the time of writing with 85% of the votes counted, Ms Saffin's primary vote increased 19% to 44.4% with her two-party preferred vote now at 65%. While this is an incredible result which many think is based on the vast workload and advocacy Ms Saffin has achieved since the February 28 2022 floods, this Sunday Profile is not about politics, it is about the life of Janelle Saffin, the person.

Janelle sat down with Simon Mumford to tell her life story, which, like her election victory, is quite remarkable. Unfortunately, as is the case with a lot of flood survivors, Janelle's personal photos were destroyed so this story is only in written form.

I was born in Ipswich, Queensland, my mum still lives there. I have two sisters and a brother, they live in Brisbane.

I grew up near in housing commission, called the one-mile so it was a big housing commission development. In housing commission back then our neighbours were teachers, workers who worked in the woollen mills and the railway workshops, what we might call tradies, labourers and all that, but also Air Force people because I was sort of relatively close to Amberley airbase, so I always had a pilot beside me.

I went to school at Leichhardt public primary school and then Girls Central in Ipswich. It was close to the one-mile where we lived so we'd walk to school. It was unusual to have an all-girls public school and I had great teachers that I realise now were very feminist, they were fantastic.

My parents split up when I was about 11 so I lived with my father for a bit in Brisbane and went to high school there. I left school when I was 13 and moved into a flat with my older sister Denise when I was turning 14 and she was 17. We couldn't live with our parents.

So, I worked and had to look after myself but the beauty back then was there were jobs. I didn't have to turn up with a degree, five certificates or a Cert IV or whatever bloody thing you have to have now. I could turn up and go in and if I worked and they liked me I'd stay on.

My first job was in a shoe shop then I worked in the meat works quite a bit, there was two side by side. This is really funny, it was owned by a certain family and many years later when I was in Melbourne, a friend of mine was CEO of the City of Melbourne and he got me to be the guest speaker. One of the people who was very actively involved was one of the owners of the meatworks so I started by saying "I was one of your employees a long time ago". So, that was quite funny.

After the meatworks, I worked at the Golden Circle cannery and worked on pineapples. I know all about pineapples. The pineapples would come through de-cored and you have to get the little pips out but you have to really wrap yourself up because pineapple juice eats into you. I know all the little tricks. If you went on beans you couldn't be there too long because they have this almost hallucinogenic effect. Everybody knew that you didn't stay on beans too long.

I also worked at foundry on pipes. If you wash your hands in the sink and look down at the steel at the top of the drain, you might see the letters CON, well that stands for cock of the north. I used to do that in the foundry, you know 500 degrees and when all the taps and bits came out of the oven and you pull them out with large tongs and scrape stuff off, I did that.

When I was about 18 to 19 I went to Perth with some girlfriends. I drove across the Nullabor when it was still dirt. We worked there for a few months before going back and then went down to Melbourne where I worked in the factory that did bits for Nomad aircraft. The women I worked with there introduced me to a lot of good food like Indian and Sri Lankan. That definitely wasn't what we had in Ipswich.

I could always get a job and I sort of opine that now for our young people. What have we done? They just can't get a job, they're not there like that. So, even though we had difficult circumstances, we could work. A lot of people have difficult circumstances now and they can't work and it can spiral.

One of the women that I travelled with came from Kyogle and so when we came back she said well, let's go to Kyogle and see mum so we did that. And again, same thing, you get somewhere and you go and get a job because you work, you have to look after yourself. So, we both came over to the Tatts Hotel and just said we want a job and they said have you got any experience in a bar? No. I said it can't be that hard. Anyway, they gave us a job.

We thought we would come over and get a place to live. Because the college was here, all the college people used to drink at the Tatts and I started thinking about going there. I always wanted to further my education. When I was at school I always came top of my class. At that time I always did a few courses, a few TAFE things like Math and English at the HSC level and general studies, Bundjalung language.

I always say I thank Gough. It wasn't that he made education free, he made it ok thinking-wise that you could do it, anyone could go and do it. That was important. Some people say it was because it was free, well that was helpful but it wasn't that, it was acceptable and accessible.

So, I enrolled here and they offered me business or teaching and I chose teaching.

Once I came to Lismore I stayed here. I just knew this was home. I was about 20.

I had to talk my way into the college to teach because I didn't have any formal education so to speak. I've taught at TAFE, I've taught adults, I've taught at the Uni sometimes, I've taught in parliaments, I've taught in all sorts of settings but never children although I am a primary trained teacher.

So, I've always taught in some form and then I did law.

Law was a desire to right wrongs, justice, all of that. I actually wanted to do medicine when I was young. I wanted to be a doctor and that just never transpired. But by the time I got to a stage where I could have probably got into Newcastle as a mature age entry to do it, I didn't want to leave here then.

So, I applied to Sydney Uni for entry as a mature-aged student studying law. They had a sort of category, about 500 people apply and they take in about 20 and I was one of the 20. What they offered you, if you came in that way, was to do arts for a year. If you succeed, then you can articulate to what you need to. By then I thought, I don't want to go and live in the city. I've never really wanted to live in the city so I applied to Macquarie Uni and they said oh, no, because they wanted people who are already sort of in law but somehow I argued my way in and I did it there, I did it externally.

I had to go down to Sydney for a couple of days, that was how it was then. It took me six years because I'd take a semester off here and there. It is four years externally but six for me because I'd take a semester off.

Once I became a lawyer I went and worked for Frank Hannigan in Casino. I worked there, David Heilpern worked there, he's the Dean of Law at SCU and went off to become a magistrate, the youngest in New South Wales and John Gibson, who's still a lawyer in Kyogle, part of the whole Gibson family.

I worked there for about two years or just under because by then, I'd already stood for parliament for the seat of Lismore in 1991.

Growing up in Ipswich, I was sort of interested in politics, you know, with Bill Hayden and then Sir Llew Edwards was our State Member. I also worked here in Women's Refuge and Youth Refuge a little bit and help them set up and so I was working in services and I just saw how difficult it was.

We went to the local member and asked him for a halfway house, it was the old police station over in Casino Street, and we asked for it on a peppercorn rental. He was lovely, a really nice person and member, but didn't see the need. I thought, there's something missing here. Anyway, we ended up persuading him and convincing him and we got it.

I always remember this, Pamela Ashton, Barbara Well and I went to the Commonwealth Bank here to open a bank account for the Women's Refuge and they asked for our husband's signatures......for a women's refuge.

There were some wrongs that really needed to be righted and I felt I could do it.

I knew I wouldn't win the seat. Billy Rixon was the member and so I ran just to fly the flag and put Labor out there in name and all of that. I ended up with just under a 3% primary swing. That was when it was like, Labor? really, reds under the bed.

Then in 1995 while I was working at Frank Hannigan's, I was offered a place on the ticket for the Upper House and won the seat.

I've had many jobs in my life. I've worked for the Richmond Tweed Regional Council for Social Development, Social Futures now, and I was the executive officer by then. I ended up in all these different services, setting them up and running them. I was a coordinator for Adult Education, I was on the New South Wales Adult Education Board, I was on the New South Wales Disability Board, I was on the hospital board here, I chaired and set up the Far North Coast Domestic Violence Liaison Committee.

I did a lot of firsts, wrote a lot of policy, cost neutral policy. I still do a lot on policy.

Jim and I even owned a pub in Coraki. Jim always wanted to buy a pub, he had this dream of buying a pub so we did. I've worked at the Workers Club, the Winsome, the Northern Rivers so I know what a lot of people in this town like to drink.

Jim and I met in college. He was a lecturer and I was a mature-aged student. We met through the Teachers Federation really, we were at the same college. He was the State President of the Lecturers Association, which is part of the New South Wales Teachers Federation, and I was State Secretary of the Training Teachers. So, it was politics that brought us together, activism politics. We've been married about 40 years. Jim and I have a son and I have three step-children from Jim's first marriage.

Jim nearly drowned in the flood.

Where we are, it would normally never flood in the house, it might be around but not in the house. I stay in town with friends when there's a flood so that I'm sort of on deck, ready to work and it just came up. The water was coming up incredibly quickly and we were on the verandah of our friend's place so we just went into the water and swam up the street. It was a bit more than 50 metres and the current was going with me so it was ok, I'm a good swimmer.

There was one channel that was a potential hazard so I said to Margaret, my friend, just grab that tyre because it was buoyant just in case we go down that bit of channel that would have taken us down Dawson Street. I just said to stick to the fences and trees and things like that even though they were underwater but you could feel a car underneath you.

Jim stayed with our dog, he wouldn't leave our dog. I don't know where he would have gone because there was no way to go out there, it was like an ocean. The water rose to the ceiling and it was my neighbour who held Jim up, she got him out of the house. They were in the canoe and the SurfSki I'd given them because I didn't have time to use them anymore. We're on the river, and they had them roped around the top of the house and we were in touch all that night. It was pretty hairy though.

Unfortunately, our dog drowned. I'd said to Jim, go out on the verandah and try and climb on the roof, I'd said that early but he wouldn't leave Zara and he couldn't lift her, she's a Rottie.

It was awful but Jim and I are older, we weren't trapped in rooms with kids or were pregnant, and we didn't have a disability. Do you know all of that? We were fine. I just don't recommend being in flood water if you can avoid it.

Having just been re-elected, I would like to see two things happen.

One, to be able to have a sort of planned coordinated recovery that includes the rebuild, the reimagination and the whole vision. So, have that all come together and have it communicated well. It just drives me absolutely bonkers that bureaucracies, good public servants, good people who provide services just don't know how to communicate. My point is that communication is key to a lot of things, and it is to disasters. If you read all the literature, you don't even have to read it, understand it, communication is front and centre of everything. A lot of people who are in those jobs don't realize it. So, it drives me completely bonkers.

I am optimistic about Lismore's future.

Just before COVID, Lismore was really starting to rock again, you know there were things happening. I see that we'll get back there, there's a will to do it. But we have to have better coordination as some people get buybacks and we have to offer them something. Here's some land, you can go there, you can go here.

I do know some things that might be coming, so I'm really optimistic about our future.